


The Workup

by tengoswengo



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Family Feels, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, casey is an honorary turt and you can fite me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-17
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2020-01-15 07:21:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18494113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tengoswengo/pseuds/tengoswengo
Summary: Casey gets patched up after the usual row with his dad





	The Workup

He wipes his nose with the back of his hand. A smear of blood reveals itself, striking in its simple blunt reality.

“Why do ya even try Case?” the voice says in his head. 

Because he isn’t here. Because he can’t be here every time his dad bothers to take a swing at him. He has a job to do and a hell of a lot of other people to be protecting outside of his stupid derelict ass running the same. God. Damn. Gambit. Every odd night with his dad.

“I know ya said it’s fer your ma,” The ghost of a conversation continues as he tries to get up, gingerly navigating the crystalline field of cutting shrapnel that lay all about him.

His dad is, mercifully, asleep. Comatose. Whatever your preference. He wouldn’t be bugging Casey for a good sixteen which meant that he had time to decide whether he wanted to see April blanch at his lousy job of patching himself up or, listen to Donatello mechanically assess whether or not he had a concussion and either way he was bound to be someone else’s burden in a day or two.

Because he has people now. In his life. And if he lets them in, he hurts them. And if he shuts them out, he hurts them.

Casey makes it to his bathroom to actually get a look at the damage for himself. He sees his reflection and the rough Brooklyn accent continues.

“But c’mon Casey, you think she’da wanted this?”

His left eye is swelling shut and what he can see of the actual eye underneath is a nasty shade of pinkish red that always set him ill at ease to see. Lacerations skim across his face and his lip is split so he leans down a moment to spit into the sink and the resulting mixture is a good bit of blood intermingling with his viscous saliva.

“You think she’d be here telling you to put your hide on the line for that-.”

He probes around gingerly in his mouth to see if he has chipped a tooth this time and when no icy jolt of pain greets him he moves on to looking at the cuts in his face. A cursory run of his fingers over his skin tells him that yes, there are still very fine shards of glass stuck in his face.

“No good, lousy, drunk bastard-.”

He sighs and his shoulders slump in defeat as he realizes he doesn’t have the patience to go digging in his own face and shoulders and god knows wherever else for every sliver of glass that’s made its bed under his skin.

“Drinkin’ himself halfway into an early grave-.”

At least when he starts to cry, he has the assurance that the blotchy mess of color that comes with that emotional release will look at home on the train wreck that is his current face. After a while he is done and he is wiping the mess of snot and blood from his face with wadded toilet paper, tossing it into the trash as he does so.

“Ya look like shit Case, let’s go,” The voice this time is, unfortunately, incarnate outside of his head. Casey’s head snaps up and he looks up at his friend, himself looking a little worse for wear with a still bleeding cut on his shoulder and skin on one arm turning a color that Casey had learned was their equivalent of a pretty nasty-ass bruise.

He has no clue how long Raph had been there and Raph’s face doesn’t betray anything. Stupid sneaky-ass giant turtles.

“C’mon, ya gonna stand there all night like a dope and make Don bitch at us fer being late or are ya gonna move?” Raph says in his usally grumpy affect, and he leans on the doorframe impatiently.

Casey for all his turmoil a moment ago can’t help the smile that cracks across his face as he clears the bathroom to slap Raph heavily on his uninjured shoulder.

“You tell Nerdo to keep his panties unwadded.”

“Tell him that yourself Case, Don’s wicked mean with a needle,” Raph says but he’s grinning anyway and so is Casey.

“So who got your number tonight?” Casey says as they climb up one of the fire escapes to start on the much more innocuous route back to their lair.

“Who hasn’t got it at this point?” Raph snorts as he climbs the last rung and steps out onto the roof. “Foot this time though.”

Traveling over the rooftops was its own sort of magic. It was dangerous sure, and a time or two he had barely cleared a landing or had put his foot through an unusually thin patch of roofing.

But most of the time it was just the rush of being above the city streets and seeing the whole rest of the city as a backdrop as they ran, the freeing sensation of leaping across an open gap, the solid crunch of victory when touching down again.

Being on the roofs made him feel alive mere minutes after being held a full foot off the ground by his dad as socked him one good in the face. Casey can’t feel his face right now, can’t feel the roaring tide of the headache that is to come tomorrow, can’t feel the lingering edge of loneliness that is the gaping void of his mother’s death.

He can feel the rush of the cool city night wind cutting through his thin overclothes and the lick of competitiveness that has himself sprinting to keep up with Raph and he can feel-

Almost like-

When they make it outside the lair, Raph scuffs at a little niche on one of the rooftops. “After Don patches you up I figure if you ain’t really whacked we can come back up and have a beer. Gotta keep ‘em up here because Leo don’t like it and if he finds my stash he’s a real stink about it.”

Casey pats his friend on his shell as he smiles in understanding, “Nah, I got ya about Leo, it’s good.”

They get down into the lair where Mikey’s squirming has just pushed Don to the breaking point and he delivers a swift smack to the back of his head before jamming a peroxide laden cotton swab into the open gash on his arm.

“Donnie!” Mike shouts. A bemused looking Leo hovers near by, already bound and patched. His eyes immediately fixate on them as they come into view.

“Raph next time bother to tell me you’re taking a detour on the way home for a fight, you know I always want everyone accounted for, especially if there’s been injuries.”

“Yeah, yeah, alright Leo,” Raph says in a tone that indicates he has heard the order a million times and plans to hear it a million more.

“Hey Casey,” Mikey says, jerking to get a look at him, much to Don’s chagrin. “What happened to your face? Ow, Don!”

“Same thing that always happens Mike, his goddamn fu-,” Raphael is cut off by a particularly scathing glare from Leo.

“Raphael, language. Mikey, mind your own business,” Leo says before turning to Donatello and asking him tiredly. “Donnie can you handle these two from here on out? I want to brief father and then go to bed.”

“I got it,” Donnie says tiredly. He gestures vaguely at the two of them, “Who wants to go first?”  
“Casey looks like he might have a concussion,” Raph says, putting a firm hand on Casey’s back and shoving him forward roughly.

“And that’s how we treat concussed people?” Donnie snipes before indicating the now vacant patient seat that is his counter. Donnie leans in close to Casey’s personal space and eyes him, comes back a moment later with a set of glasses perched precariously on his snout and then with the sort of precision that comes from hands attuned to working with delicate circuits and volatile substances, much less patients, Donnie probes at his face, shines a light in his good eye, swabs at the one that’s swollen shut, and ducks away again to come back with a pair of tweezers.

Meanwhile Mikey is looking over the gash on Raph’s shoulder.

“I can stitch that for you, you know?” Mikey says with a cheeky smile that no one in the lair would trust if they were drowning and Mikey had the last life preserver.

“Mike you come near me with a needle and Don will have to stitch you up twice as much,” Raph growls, but there’s light in his eyes as he does it and Mikey is still grinning as he steps safely out of Raph’s range of reach.

“So,” Don says conversationally, “Someone smashed a bottle in your face, did they?”

“Seems like it,” Casy says uncomfortably. He like all the turtles, really, but Raph is his best friend because Raph knows how he feels about questions and he doesn’t push him like Apes, or interrogate him like, well everyone else except Mikey. But even Mikey just stares at him with his big sad kid eyes and he hates feeling like he’s hurting him just by being in proximity.

“And,” there’s a little tinkle that accompanies every time he yanks a sliver out as he sets it on the tray. “So you’re staying in the infirmary so I can keep watch on your eye and check there’s no permanent long term damage.”

It isn’t a question because in the infirmary Donnie asks very few questions and gives quite a few orders. Even so Casey opens his mouth to fight it.

“Really Case, your eye looks fucked,” Raph says coming up alongside him.

Mikey appears with a rolled-up magazine and paps Raph lightly on the head, “Language Raphael.” He ducks as Raph tries to put him in a stranglehold, thankfully going away rather than towards him and Don.

“Seriously though, umph- Raph stop!- Casey, Splinter doesn’t mind you over here, he told you so himself….” Mikey’s sentence tapers off as Raph tightens his grip and Mikey attempts several times to tap out before his big brother promptly drops him like a sack of potatoes.

“If you two are going to roughhouse, get out,” Don snaps irritably as Mikey continues his theatric gasping on the floor for a few moments unabated then stands up as if nothing had happened.

Raph rolls his eyes but folds his arms and steps further away from Mikey.

“Go lay on the cot, seriously Casey. Raph you’re up,” Don says.

Raph saunters up to the counter freshly vacated by Casey and slides along till he is in his immediate younger brother’s reach. He squinches his eyes closed as Don stitches his cut back together, grunting exactly once at the start of the entire ordeal. Then Don swaps his other less ugly cuts, probes his bruises and lets him off.

“Ya want a coffee or something Don?” Raph says as he hops off the counter. “Sorry to run ya up late after the missions lately.”

“No my agenda for tonight is shot, I’m going to bed as well.”

“Good fer you genius,” Raph says good naturedly.

“If you’re staying in with Casey don’t break anything. Mikey, out,” Don says to the youngest. Mikey looks like he is about to whine about not being included in the infirmary slumber party but a quick assessment of Donnie’s mood helps him choose otherwise. The infirmary clears out and it’s just Raph and Casey.

“So ya want that beer?” Raph asks as he makes his way over to Casey.

“Y’sure? Doubt Leo would like it.”

Raph snorts, “Leo doesn’t like much of anythin’ fun.”

So that’s how it ends up the two of them on a roof sitting together looking out at the brightly lit world. Casey’s got his swollen eye and his wounded pride but it isn’t so bad when he’s standing sitting up here sipping his can and listening to Raph regale him how Mikey accidently took down two foot with a panicked flail of his nun chucks.

“Hey,” Raph says after a bit as their conversation tapers off and it’s just the two of them listening to distant city noises and looking out at nothing in particular.

“Yeah?”

“Don wasn’t trying to boss ya around earlier, I don’t want ya to get that impression. He was kinda tryin’ to mother hen ya a bit, even if it doesn’t seem like it.”

“Yeah, I know,” Casey says and he takes another sip without bothering to look at his friend.

“Ya do?”

“Yeah.”

And really. He does.

His mom is still dead. His dad is still a drunk. But maybe if he’d stop beating around the bush about it and gave in he’d find himself a lot less alone in all this.

But for now, he has Raph and a beer and maybe the beginnings of a headache now, and the world is alright.

**Author's Note:**

> i'll be kicking around with drabbles until i can figure out a longer thing to write, dont mind me


End file.
